Businesses Suing Competitors, Calling Illegal Workers Unfair

Published: August 24, 2006

Frustrated by what they see as lax enforcement of immigration law, some businesses are suing competitors, accusing them of hiring illegal workers to achieve an unfair advantage.

Businesses and groups opposing illegal immigration call the suits an effort to create an economic deterrent against hiring illegal workers.

''We see the legal profession bringing to this issue the kind of effect it's had on consumer product safety,'' said Michael Hethmon of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, one group backing the efforts.

In the first of what are to be a series of lawsuits, Global Horizons, a Santa Monica temporary-employment agency that supplies farm workers, brought a case Monday against two competitors and a grower. Companies planning to file additional suits include farms and factories that depend heavily on immigrant labor, said David Klehm, the lead lawyer for cases in Southern California.

Similar cases have been brought in the past by employees claiming violations of federal antiracketeering laws, and have yielded mixed results. But the Global Horizons suit, legal experts say, is believed to be the first taking aim at illegal immigration on the basis of a state's unfair-competition laws.

Global Horizons claims in the suit that Munger Brothers, a grower, hired illegal immigrant workers from Ayala Agricultural Services and J & A Contractors. All the defendants are based in the Central Valley, California's agricultural spine.

The suit says that Global Horizons had a contract with Munger Brothers to provide more than 600 blueberry pickers this spring but that the grower broke the agreement so it could hire illegal immigrants.

''Competitors' hiring illegal immigrants is hurting our business badly,'' said the president of Global Horizons, Mordechai Orian.

Javier Rodriguez, manager of Ayala Agricultural Services, said that he had not seen the suit but that the company did not hire illegal immigrants.

Messages left with Munger Brothers and J & A Contractors were not immediately returned.

Legal experts said the cases could be difficult to win. Under the California statutes, plaintiffs must prove that a competitor directly harmed their business, and ''unless you've got smoking-gun evidence, it's hard to tie economic loss of one business to another's practices,'' said Niels Frenzen, a law professor at the University of Southern California.